Sufficiency: Nobody should always have to want more S4F AT

by Martin Auer

Our Western society is referred to as a “consumer society”, also as a “growth society”. On a finite planet, however, infinite growth is not possible, nor is infinitely increasing consumption, even if the goods consumed are produced more and more efficiently. There will be no sustainable development without sufficiency – in German: “sufficiency”. But what exactly is that? Asceticism? Renunciation of wealth? Or another kind of prosperity?

“Sufficiency means enjoying a few things intensively instead of surrounding yourself with so many things that enjoyment is no longer possible,” writes economist Niko Paech1. It literally means: to be sufficiently supplied, to have enough. What this is about is using the existing resources so that they can regenerate again. Logically it is easy to see that there is no other way.

Nevertheless, we in the West are increasing our consumption every year, and most of what technology saves us in terms of resources through greater efficiency is eaten up by this increasing consumption. In 1995, an average car consumed 9,1 liters of fuel per 100 km. In total, German cars consumed 47 billion liters. In 2019, the average consumption was 7,7 liters, but the total consumption was still 47 billion liters2. In 1990, the average engine power of newly registered cars in Germany was 95 hp, but in 2020 it was 160 hp3. In 2001, Germans drove 575 million km in their cars, and in 2019 they covered 645 million km. This increase is due to the larger number of cars per 1000 inhabitants4. Technical progress only made cars more affordable, faster and heavier, but did not result in lower energy consumption.

To avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we must reduce the average global greenhouse gas emissions of 6,8 tonnes per capita per year (including 4,2 tonnes of CO2).5 to under a ton6 press. And quickly, namely by the middle of the century. For Austria, the starting point is 13,8 tonnes of consumption-based emissions7. They are distributed unequally: the top 10 percent of the population causes four times as many emissions as the bottom 10 percent8. So the task before us is huge. In order to overcome them, we need technical progress: renewable energies, increasing energy and resource efficiency in all areas. In addition, nature-based solutions such as the restoration of natural landscapes, which can absorb much more CO2 than pure tree planting. But none of this will get us there quickly enough unless we limit the production – and thus consumption – of material goods. The greatest savings opportunities exist in mobility, nutrition and construction and living. There is no way around sufficiency. There must be fewer cars on the roads. Instead of sitting alone in a 1,5-ton car, we have to share a bus, a tram, a train with others. Cruel factory farming must disappear, and with it the cheap meat in the supermarket. At the same time, massive redistribution measures are needed, because it cannot be the case that some people feast on organic meat while others cannot afford their schnitzel or lamb chops, even on Sunday.

Barriers to sufficiency

The need to not consume more than what grows is easy to understand, but implementing this insight is difficult. Why is that? Why is it so hard to say “enough”? The sociologist Oliver Stengel names five barriers that stand in the way of sufficient behavior9:

Eating less meat, for example, saves money but has other costs: changing habits requires effort. You have to constantly think about your actions. You have to learn to cook again, you have to change your route through the supermarket or shop somewhere else, and much more.

The second barrier is cultural: increased consumption represents success, you show that you can afford it. Restriction stands for asceticism, regression, hardship. Especially your own house and the big, fast car are status symbols. The driver's license is as much a part of education as a school leaving certificate by Symbol of adulthood. Anyone who constantly flies around for business must be an important person, and anyone who spends their vacation in the goosebump instead of in the Maldives is a poor wretch. But if you really want to be among the elite, you have to go to Bora Bora. Eating is also about status, but also about gender roles: a real man grills meat in the garden and eats steaks that are two centimeters thick.

The third barrier is: We orientate ourselves on the behavior of others. We do what is “normal”. We don't want to be outsiders, we don't want to be seen as weirdos. But yesterday's weirdos sometimes become pioneers of new trends: vegans are still a vanishing minority - in Austria 2% of adults. But every supermarket now has a vegan offering.

Fourthly, people tend to abdicate their responsibility: I as an individual cannot do anything, “politics” have to do it. “Politics,” in turn, blames the electorate. And the companies blame the customers: You buy it, so we produce it.

Consumption sustains the system

Fifthly, there are systemic reasons for the ever-increasing consumption. Companies that are exposed to market competition must constantly increase labor productivity in order not to be overtaken. This results in either a loss of jobs with production remaining the same, or increased production with the same number of jobs. And when the market is saturated, when everyone already has a television, a washing machine, a cell phone, then the screens have to get bigger and bigger, the washing machines have a back door where you can stuff laundry in during the wash cycle, and cell phones have to have more and more storage space , more powerful cameras etc. so that you can still sell something. The new model makes the previous one obsolete and devalues ​​it. This has the same effect as the predetermined breaking point, which ideally makes the device unusable the day after the warranty expires.

In addition to the economic ones, there are also political barriers. If an entire society were to actually live sufficiently, it would present “politics” with immense tasks: if consumption declines, companies cut jobs, the state loses tax revenue, the pension system gets into difficulties, and so on. “Politics” wants to avoid such difficulties as much as possible. That's why, depending on your ideological stance, it propagates "climate protection with a sense of proportion" or "green growth" instead of seriously taking the restructuring of the system into its own hands.

The market economy system and the associated politics force consumption on us. It means freeing yourself from this compulsion. Hence the title of this article, which comes from an essay by Uta von Winterfeld: Nobody should always have to want more. According to Winterfeld, that's what it's all about Law about sufficiency, not about the obligation to do so10.

Don't worry about your well-being

The goal of sufficiency is not to forego well-being. If you measure well-being by average life expectancy and consumption by consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions, then you can see, for example: Americans produce an average of 15,5 tons of CO2 per person per year and live to be 76,4 years old. The inhabitants of Costa Rica produce 2,2 tons of CO2 and live to be 80,8 years old11.

Sufficiency aims to satisfy needs in the most resource-saving way possible. Needs can be satisfied in different ways. There are other ways to get from A to B than by car. If you go shopping by bike, you not only save money on gas, but also on the fitness center. You can achieve cozy warmth by turning up the heating, putting on a sweater or thermally renovating the house. If you treat your washing machine well, it can last 20 years or more. At least older models can do that. If all washing machines last twice as long as they do today (typically 5 to 10 years), then obviously only half as many would need to be produced. Chipped furniture can be repaired or repainted. The durability of clothing can also be extended through good treatment. Wash properly, repair minor damage, swap items that have become boring with a friend. And sewing yourself provides more and lasting satisfaction than shopping. Almost 40% of all clothing is never worn12. Not buying these clothes in the first place does not cause any loss of comfort.

The principle is: reduce (i.e. buy less stuff from the start, ask yourself with every purchase: Do I really need this?), use it for longer, repair it, continue to use it (e.g. give it to others and buy used), and only recycle it at the very end. But it also means becoming independent of fashions and trends. Sharing and sharing also creates new social contacts. And what's more important: don't spend the money you save through a more modest everyday life on a plane trip that will ruin your entire carbon footprint in one fell swoop. The technical term for this is called rebound effect, and it is important to avoid it. If you no longer need part of your income due to a sufficient lifestyle, you can use this part to support social projects or nature conservation projects. Or even consider working part-time.

Organize sufficiency

Of course, everything cannot be imposed on the individual. The demand on the industry must be to produce durable and repairable products and to end the practice of “planned wear and tear”. Getting from A to B on your own is easier when A and B are closer together, especially housing, work and supplies. This is where urban planning is required. Pedestrians and cyclists must also feel safe. Using and sharing together is made easier if the living situation accommodates this through common rooms, shared kitchens, do-it-yourself rooms, laundry rooms, etc.

If, in general, every increase in productivity were offset by a corresponding reduction in working hours, output of goods would remain stable. Average annual hours worked in the euro area have fallen by 1995% since 6, but productivity has increased by 25%13. To maintain the standard of living in 1995, we could work 20% less today than we did back then. This is just an illustration, because work would actually have to be restructured, from material production (and its management) to education, science, health, care, culture. And work and income opportunities would also have to be distributed more fairly. Saving work should not mean that some people continue to work as before, while others remain without work and without income.

Economy in the service of people and nature

As long as profit maximization is the engine of the economy, sufficiency on a social scale cannot be achieved. But not every company has to make a profit. The “social economy” sees itself as an economy that serves people and nature. These include non-profit or cooperative housing, renewable energy communities, employee-owned craft and industrial companies, cooperative retail, credit, platform and marketing cooperatives, solidarity agriculture initiatives, NGOs in the field of sustainable development and many more14. According to the EU Commission, there are around 2,8 million social economy organizations in Europe. They create more than 13 million jobs and thus employ 6,3% of the European workforce15. Because such companies are not profit-oriented, they are not subject to the pressure to grow. A prerequisite for sufficiency, for the possibility of saying: “It is enough”, is that what, how much and how is produced is democratically negotiated. The social economy offers this possibility, albeit only on a modest scale. Promoting and expanding this non-profit branch of the economy is - alongside the expansion of the welfare state - one of the essential prerequisites for social-ecological transformation. Democratic economic activity is not yet a guarantee for sustainable economic activity. It creates the possibility for reason and the sense of “right proportion” to prevail.

1Paech, Niko (2013): Praise for reduction. In: Sufficiency as the key to more happiness in life and environmental protection, oO. oekom publishing house.

2https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/verkehr/endenergieverbrauch-energieeffizienz-des-verkehrs

3A. Ajanovic, L. Schipper, R. Haas (2012): The impact of more efficient but larger new passenger cars on energy consumption in EU-15 countries https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2012.05.039 and .https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/249880/umfrage/ps-zahl-verkaufter-neuwagen-in-deutschland/

4https://www.forschungsinformationssystem.de/servlet/is/80865/

5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

6https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/service/uba-fragen/wie-hoch-sind-die-treibhausgasemissionen-pro-person

7https://www.technik.steiermark.at/cms/dokumente/12449173_128523298/4eaf6f42/THG-Budget_Stmk_WegenerCenter_update.pdf

8https://greenpeace.at/uploads/2023/08/gp_reportklimaungerechtigkeitat.pdf

9Stengel, Oliver (2013): Constant dripping. Against the barriers of sufficiency, In: Sufficiency as the key to more happiness in life and environmental protection, oO. oekom publishing house.

10Von Winterfeld, Uta (2007): No sustainability without sufficiency. processes issue 3/2007, pp. 46-54

11https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

12Greenpeace (2015): Disposable clothing. https://www.greenpeace.de/publikationen/20151123_greenpeace_modekonsum_flyer.pdf

13https://www.bankaustria.at/files/analyse_arbeitszeit_19062023.pdf

14Social Economy Declaration; https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/_files/_event_sites/_se-conference/Social_Economy_Deklaration_20092023_web.pdf

15EU Commission (2022): Factsheet Social Economy Action Plan, https://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=24985&langId=en